1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to special-purpose couplings for transportation means, in particular to intersection connections of cryogenic pipelines in locomotives running on cryogenic fuel (gas-turbine locomotives, gas-diesel locomotives).
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98.
A flexible pipeline for cryogenic liquids is known in the art that consists of an outer corrugated casing pipe covered with wire gauze and an inner corrugated casing pipe covered with multi-layered heat-insulating material, vacuum space being created therebetween. Undulated elements are attached to the inner corrugated pipe with the use of ceramic inserts and straps, which elements fix a position of the inner corrugated pipe relative to the outer corrugated pipe, but without hampering their mutual longitudinal shift (USSR Inventor's Certificate No. 530144, IPC F16L11/12, 1976).
A drawback of this flexible pipeline is non-uniform distribution of corrugated pipe strains along the flexible pipeline length, which strains may arise due to mutual shifts of the pipeline end flanges during movements of the locomotive sections connected by this flexible pipeline as well as due to vibration actions on the flexible pipeline; such non-uniform distribution results in high local stresses in the walls of the corrugated pipes, thus reducing their service life.
An intersection connection of cryogenic systems in a gas-turbine locomotive is also known in the art, which is taken as the prototype of this invention; this connection consists of two straight flexible double-wall corrugated pipelines made of cold-resistant steel and arranged at an angle of 85-95 degrees to each other. The respective ends of the corrugated pipelines are connected to cryogenic pipelines rigidly fixed to the end walls of the locomotive sections, and their other ends are connected to supporting arms provided with gas passages and connected to the respective ends of a rigid arched pipeline, torsion bars are connected to the supporting arms by their respective ends, and the other ends of these torsion bars are rigidly fixed to the end walls of the locomotive adjacent sections. Vacuum is created in the inter-pipe space of the double-wall pipelines. (Patent RU 2487032 C1, IPC B61G 5/06, B61C 17/02, 2013).
A drawback of this intersection connection of cryogenic systems is that its reliability and service life are reduced due to multiple connections in the pipeline, use of said rigid arched pipeline and strains in flexible double-wall corrugated pipelines arising during movement of the locomotive.